As mentioned yesterday, things have been a little busy around here. This causes me to have tunnel vision. While I’m tackling one thing, all that’s on my mind is what do I need to do next. Instead of my eyes wandering around, I’m starring straight ahead. I didn’t really realize this until today, while driving. I felt my hands clenched on the wheel, my body hunched, and my brain shooting from one thing to the next.

I made the realization and then relaxed my grip and sat back. While still paying attention to cars on the road + pedestrians, I looked around and made another realization. Despite the weather being in the 80’s for the past week, the leaves are changing color.

What!? When did this happen? We had a few cool, rainy days, but then it crept right back up into the 80’s. I wasn’t even paying attention to the trees with the weather being so warm.

There will definitely be pumpkin bread + other pumpkin recipes in the near future, but pumpkin donuts are first.

With adding pumpkin puree to the mix, I wasn’t quite sure how this recipe would work. My worry was that they would become too fluffy and cake-like. I knew I needed to decrease the amount of milk, but wasn’t sure by how much. I wanted them to have a nice spiced flavor, but not overdone.

I started to add ingredients to the bowl, and realized I was out of baking powder. With Kelsey living a few blocks away, I gave her a ring. No answer. So, I broke in. With the key of course. No baking powder to be found, so I scurried off to a little market and grabbed it.

Problem one: diverted

Problem two: I added too much almond milk.

Problem three: If this recipe turned out to be a fail, I was also out of sweet rice flour and not going back to the store.

Good news! This recipe is really forgiving. Too much almond milk, just required a little longer bake time. They still had their cake-donut texture and were not gooey in the least. The pumpkin didn’t make them too fluffy or cakey, either. Cake donut texture is much different than actual cake texture. A bit denser and more moist. Despite the fact that they are baked, they truly have a fried cake donut texture.

While the donuts were baking away, I got to work on the glaze. I wanted a thick, pumpkin spiced glaze.

First thing to do. Make fresh powdered sugar, using sucanat. So super easy! Just be careful, as it’s very powdery when you grind it. Don’t breathe too deeply! Check out the smoke below. That has nothing to do with heat. It’s all sugar smoke!

Instead of adding milk to the sucanat powdered sugar, I added pumpkin and a little spice.

And it worked!

If you’re not a huge fan of super sweet, sugary glaze, fear not. You will still love these donuts sans glaze. I gobbled one up, immediately out of the oven, with no glaze in sight….and I might even prefer them that way.